Executive Education: New Finance Management Certificate Program Launched by University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin will launch its new Financial Management Certificate Program (FMCP) designed to provide professionals with the financial skills they need to gain a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace. Participants can learn how to analyze financial information so they can quickly spot strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improving financial performance.

According to top business news sources, including MarketWatch and Forbes, Austin still has room for financial growth in 2013-2014, and will continue to be ranked at the top in all growth and finance categories when compared to other U.S. cities. The FMCP was developed as a cohort style learning experience that provides students real-world practical instruction toward a solid understanding of how to manage their organization’s financial information and sustain its operational health in this growing market. The program employs group discussions of financial issues and an assortment of interactive exercises, including videos and games.

“You avoided those boring accounting classes in school but there are still many obscure terms you need to understand for your business,” explained UT-PDC instructor Leita Hart-Fanta. “This course is designed to teach you how to have a solid, insightful conversation about your part of the business, and help you formulate the right approach for what you want and need with your financially savvy colleagues.”

“Austin’s growing economy provides so many exciting opportunities for a variety of businesses,” said Liliya Spinazzola, director of UT-PDC. “And with those opportunities comes the need and expectation of business owners, managers and generally anyone interested in finance to understand how to manage revenue and optimize long-term financial gain.”

The four one-day courses begin September 12 and meet once monthly through December 17.

The four courses include:

Essentials of Finance and Accounting Part I: Learn how profits are made and gain a more balanced perspective on their importance to your organization. By the end of class, you will learn how to use the three key financial statements to tell a story about the financial health of an organization, how the concepts of liquidity, solvency and profitability impact business decisions and how to scrutinize a P&L statement.

Essentials of Finance and Accounting Part II: Dive into the mechanisms of cash flow and learn skills to manage working capital that help you determine an operational decision’s impact on profit. By completion of this class, you will gain a deeper understanding of depreciation and learn how to extract information to manage and invest from a 10K report.

Financial Statement Analysis: Analyze and interpret key ratios for a particular industry and design new systems to avoid common business pitfalls. In this session, you will discuss metrics that determine the viability of individual projects including EBITA, ROI, IRR, and EVA.

Forecasting for Profit in Tough Times: Review best practices in budgeting and forecasting, along with some tips and tricks to make your product the best it can be. This course is a facilitated walk-through of the forecasting process using participants’ products or services.